Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Beneath the Lilly Banners

We tried another game of Williamite troops against Jacobites somewhere in Ireland in or around 1690 using barry Hilton’s beneath the Lilly Banners rules.

The Jacobites were defending a village and bridge with forces consisting of three drilled regiments of foot, three raw regiments of foot and three squadrons of drilled cavalry, supported by one field gun and one light gun.

King William’s forces, consisting of two elite regiments of foot, three drilled regiments of foot and one raw regiment of foot with two squadrons of drilled cavalry and one field gun. This was the vanguard tasked with clearing the Jacobite defenders from the table.

Williamite left flank



Jacobite right flank in the village

The game commenced with the cavalry charging towards each other as the Williamite right attacked the Jacobites behind hedges surrounding a field and William’s left moved towards the village. Unfortunately lady luck did not smile on William’s troops as their cavalry broke and fled leaving the left flank open to the remaining Jacobite cavalry which charged against two of the three regiments causing one to break and flee, the other became disordered having failed to form square before the cavalry reached them.

However the Nassau regiment, although disordered faired somewhat better, although disordered, by the Jacobite commander throwing bad dice and inflicting no further casualties. After three turns the two units retired to reform.


The cavalry meet head on


The firefight and ultimate charge on the Williamite right


Meanwhile on the Jacobite left flank things were starting to turn and after a heavy fire fight Hanmer’s regiment, supported by the remains of Kirke’s charged the Jacobites causing one to flee and the other was left open to further attack with a Danish regiment in support which, unfortunately, was subject to continual harassing artillery fire.

At the end of the evening it was a close run thing and if we had enough time, maybe the Williamite forces could have managed to force the Jacobites back but would have had three full squadrons of cavalry harassing their left flank.









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